It’s My Job … To Freeze You!

The Queen had an engagement yesterday evening, leaving me with the house all to myself. So I did what any wild-at-heart, red-blooded male would do, given a night of unexpected bachelorhood:

Had Grape-Nuts and beer for dinner;

Watched Logan’s Run on DVD.

Matthew Baldwin: married but not domesticated.

I was surprised by how good it was. The beer, I mean. Logan’s Run was a calamity. I picked it up after a few people expressed mystification that I had never seen it. When I mentioned this to The Queen, for example, she reacted as if I had told her I was missing a lung. Everyone emphatically urged me to correct this historic oversight. “It’s just so, so, so very, very, very bad,” they would say. “You must rent it immediately.”

And I did. And I watched it. And I learned some astounding facts about the future.

We will live in a domed city, which, judging from the opening shot of this film, will be seven inches high and surrounded by Hi-Ho Train Model trees.

Criminals will try to escape the law by going to the most public place in town and hiding behind a potted plant.

We will be so technologically advanced that, every seven minutes or so, loud “Bee Boo Boo Beep!” noises will echo throughout city.

Even the most mundane conversation will be filled with exposition:

A: I wish I knew who my seed-mother was.

B: What’s wrong with the Incu-droids? And, besides, you know that even thinking thoughts like that is will get you in trouble with the Conformity Council.

A: I know. But I’m 29 years old, and since all citizens of Galatropolis are killed at the age of 30, what do I have to lose?

Apparently the whole “Death with Dignity” movement will have collapsed by 2274, since shuffling off the mortal coil in Logan’s Run entails the wearing of Stupidest Costume Ever, flying into the air, and exploding.

Even the credits of this movie are bad. I mean, if you made a motion picture predicated on the idea that all people die at 30, would you put “And starring Peter Ustinov as Old Man” in the opening? Um, spoiler, dude.

And don’t even get me started about The Robot Scene. Oh brother, The Robot Scene. Where did that come from? Still, I can’t say that I wasn’t warned. Last month some friends and I were discussing 80’s Ending, and I said “my favorite part was how they stuck that robot scene in there for no reason.” And then my buddy said, “You mean like The Robot Scene in Logan’s Run?” After I confessed that I had never seen Run, he said “It’s this bizarre scene where … well, they must have really wanted to get a robot in there somewhere, right? So they filmed this robot sequence that doesn’t have anything to do with anything? And then just spiced it on in there.” I said that I though that was a pretty good idea for any movie, frankly, and that I wanted to start a business that took mainstream movies and turned them into movies about robots. Like, you know how porn movie guys take popular films and remake them into adult pictures like Terms of Inrearment and For Your Thighs Only and E-3: The Extra-Testicle, where they use the plot outline from the original movie to string together a bunch of sex scenes? Those are the kind of movies I would make, except that instead of sex scenes it would have robot scenes, and the movies would have titles like My Big Fat Greek Robot or 2 Fast 2 Robots or West Cyborg Story or Saving Private Ryan’s Robot or whatever.

ANYway! I did like the ending of Logan’s Run, simply because it was exactly the same as every 70’s-era science-fiction movie ending: somebody blows up the computer by making illogical statements. You can’t beat the classics. It’s a shame they don’t use that any more. Wouldn’t it be awesome if that’s how the Wachowski brothers ended Matrix Revolutions?

The Source: Your journey ends here, Neo. I am The Source, the self-aware synthetic intelligence that controls the Matrix and all of mankind.

Keanu: Up is down! Black is white! Cats are squirrels! I can act!

The Source: D0ES N0T C0MPUTE <crashes>

I’d pay nine bucks to see that.

28 thoughts on “It’s My Job … To Freeze You!”

I remember reading the “Logan’s Run” book (which is really more of an extended short story) when I was a kid. I was enthralled and read it over and over; I was totally psyched that they were going to make a movie. The movie, of course, sucked, even for a little kid. It was the moment for me, that happens to everyone, when you first realize movies don’t equal books. Fuckin’ grownups.

Now, it’s been a long time, but I think I might still vouch for the book being a decent story.

PS: You’re right of course, the robot in the movie wasn’t a robot in the book!

I have to say that I loved this movie when I was a kid and caught it on TV every other month. Plus, the fact that the robot “Box” has the voice of Roscoe Lee Brown (who, next to Keith David, has one of the coolest voices around) really did it for me. Oh, and for a great review of “Logan’s Run”:

Luckynotlucky: “It was the moment for me, that happens to everyone, when you first realize movies don’t equal books.”

I was watching “The Crow” on TBS last night and one line in particular caught my attention for the first time. It was a part when “Brooding Evil Dude” was talking to his sister/lover and said: “My father told me the day you realize you are going to die is the day you’re grown up” or something. I thought that was an interesting idea, but I think Luckynotlucky hits it just as well.

Not to sound like too much of a fanboy, but Box (the robot) actually did have a purpose in the film. He was supposed to collect food from the sea for the city. Something happened, and the seafood stopped coming so he started collecting the people who were fleeing to sanctuary instead. Therefore, his place in the movie was to tell what had happened to all the escaped runners (he froze them).

I think the secret to liking this movie is to have seen it before age 10, and when the effects weren’t quite so dated.

So i have stumbled upon your site…and to be blunt i have greatly enjoyed reading the things you have had to say….I have found myself laughing quite hard…..
would you mind if i linked you to my site??
If not just let me know…

I thought it was great when I saw it as a child, but wanted to gouge my eyes out after seeing it again as an adult. Me in the video store: “Oh my god, it’s that awesome movie who’s name I haven’t been able to remember for years!”

I had just turned 10 when Logan’s Run came out and that sure makes a difference. I recommend being 10 for all SciFi movies. I saw it at summer camp! I hadn’t seen anything like it before. Lights on hands! Laser plastic surgery! Electric Sex Dumbwaiters! They all walked around in a mall all day! It was 1976. I had never seen saw a mall before. It looked pretty cool. I wonder what else from the 70’s wasn’t really cool after all? ;-)

I concur with the “you have to be 10 to get the most out of bad sci-fi” but I would add that you can get the same enjoyment when in college on those long not-so-sober nights. Only ones this didn’t work for me with were “Buckeroo Banzai”, possibly the WORST bad sci-fi movie of all time, and “Cool World”, the only movie I’ve ever considered gnawing my own arm off to get away from(having been dragged to the theater by a friend).

Ye gods. Friend gave me a link a while ago to your site, and I randomly decided to skim through some of it. I’m so upset. I’ve been talking for years about redoing movies with two changes: (1) replace a random character with a random muppet (2) let it end where it was supposed to.

Admittedly, this would end most Bond movies in the first 3 minutes. But imagine the horror on theater-dwellers when they see the villain actually just shoot and kill the bad guy right up front.. or worse…

Hey. You seem to have a regular commenter or emailer named Laurie Boris. I have no idea if this is the Laurie Boris I was once friends with at Syracuse University, but could you forward her the message that Darren (she’ll know which Darren) is having his first novel published by PublishAmerica? I have no idea if she ever wants to talk to me again, but I think she’ll be happy for me.